Several posts ago, Hanny provided us with an excellent overview of the three match types available to advertisers in PPC marketing. In his post, Hanny explained the nuances of each match type including opportunities and potential pitfalls.

Many advertisers new to PPC marketing assume the best approach is to select a single match type for each keyword. In most cases the default selection is phrase match - often perceived as the least risky with the greatest upside. But what most advertisers don't realize is that it is possible to capture a lot of additional traffic and value by leveraging all three match types simultaneously.

Let’s explore the unique benefits of each match type:

Broad – the broad match type will allow your existing keyword list to trigger ads for synonymous terms that may not explicitly exist in your current campaign

Example:  A broad match bid on Apple iPhone may trigger ads for searches like smart phones or cellular devices.
Both smart phones and cellular devices are examples of potential new adgroups to be considered for this account.

Phrase - the phrase match type can be particularly useful in helping advertisers discover useful permutations for their existing keyword set.

Example: A phrase match bid on Apple iPhone may trigger an ad for a search on refurbished Apple iPhone or White Apple iPhone
As you can clearly see these are two unique permutations of the original seed keyword that would not have triggered an ad as an Exact match.

Exact – the exact match type allows advertisers to tighten their campaign, this match type will not generate new ideas for keywords. However it delivers exactly what it promises, your ad will only be triggered for the exact search query – and there is a lot of value in that proposition.

In my previous examples, I focused on leveraging actual search queries to identify opportunities for growing your keyword list and adgroups. In addition, this strategy is also a great way to fine tune your adgroups by adding negative keywords for unrelated search queries.

Example: Recall the refurbished example, this keyword was identified as a potentially relevant permutation as a new keyword or adgroup within your Apple iPhone campaign.

Suppose you do not sell refurbished iPhones and have no desire to reach this audience, simply add refurbished as a negative keyword. Now your phrase match on the Apple iPhone keyword will continue to trigger your ad for additional permutations not including refurbished.

For more information on how to mine search data for keyword ideas see the Search Query Report post.

Tony, Clickable SEM Guru
 
Note: Clickable employees volunteer several hours a week to helping other search marketers succeed. "Clickable Gurus" participate in numerous online search communities to provide straightforward answers to numerous questions, and, each week, one of the gurus posts a search marketing tip to the Clickable Blog.